FISH 197 



involved ' less expenditure and more success ' ; ^ and Sir W. 

 White way stated to the Halifax Commission in 1877 that 99 

 per cent, of the fishery of Newfoundland was carried on within 

 the three-mile limit.^ Bounties were granted to ships from 

 the United Kingdom which fished on the Grand Banks from 

 1775 to 1802 ; after which English and Colonial ships visited 

 the Banks on equal terms until the close of the Napoleonic 

 wars. After the peace ^ the Grand Banks were deserted by 

 British ships, both from England and from Newfoundland. 

 John Macgregor (1828), Sir Richard Bonny castle (1841), 

 Hon. Patrick Morris (1847), Sir J. Gaspard Le Marchant 

 (1848), Bishop Mullock (1861), and Sir Stephen Hill (1873) 

 noted the fact, and Morris wrote with Irish exaggeration that 

 ' Thousands ' (meaning hundreds) ' of ships belonging to the 

 French and the Americans are engaged on the deep sea fishery. 

 There is not one British ship fitted out for the Bank fishery.' '' 

 Two popular explanations held the field. Shortly after 181 8 

 large bounties and privileges were offered by France, by the 

 United States, and for a short time by Spain, but no bounties 

 were offered by Newfoundland to the bankers. In consequence 

 of these bounties Frenchmen went to the Grand Banks with 

 ships of 150 to 300 tons, and with buUows in 1820, and 

 Gloucester (Massachusetts) sent forth its Captains Courageous 

 and became the fish capital of the United States in 1825. In 

 1876 similar bounties were offered by Newfoundland with 

 such success that in 1879 Sir J. Glover wrote that 'the cod- 

 fishery in the Banks, which was extensively prosecuted in 

 former times, has recently been revived'; and in 1892 there 

 were 330, in 1908 there were 107 Newfoundland ships upon 

 the Banks, and bank-fish are now 7 or 8 per cent, of the total 

 catch. But trade is rarely so responsive to the puppet-strings 



1 Bonnycastle, op. cit.^ vol. ii, p. 161. 



2 Accounts and Papers^ 1878, vol. Ixxx (c. 2056), p. 284. 



^ Newfoundland Blue Book, 1828, gives 10 Bankers, although 

 MacGregor (1828) says there were none. 



* P. Morris, Short Review of the History of Newfoundland, 1847, 

 pp. V and 35. 



